


Does Hogwarts have pastoral care?

by 1PB2PB3PB4



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dyspraxia, Gen, Hogwarts Era, and james, dyspraxic harry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-19
Updated: 2016-06-19
Packaged: 2018-07-16 00:02:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7244179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1PB2PB3PB4/pseuds/1PB2PB3PB4
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Do you want to know what annoyed the most about Hogwarts? The lack of technology, specifically computers.<br/>Dyspraxic Harry at school, the main difficulties each year but mainly focusing on writing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Does Hogwarts have pastoral care?

**Author's Note:**

> As you may or may not know Daniel Radcliffe, who plays Harry in the films, has dyspraxia so I decides to write a dyspraxic Harry though I don't really think the character would have it, though he might. Also surely Hogwarts has to have kids with additional needs but it's never mentioned, so this happened.  
> Also dyspraxia (DCD) awareness cause it's common but not well known  
> For more information on the condition I recomend you check out the dyspraxia foundation or for a more medical side the NHS website.   
> I hope you like the fic.

Do you want to know what annoyed him the most about Hogwarts? The lack of technology, specifically computers.

At primary school his year 4 teacher had first mentioned the idea of him doing his school work on a laptop, especially for secondary school, after it came apparent Harry's issues with writing were more than simple plain laziness. Despite trying hard Harry's writing was still messy, often illegible to anyone with an untrained eye, and sometimes other children asked for him to "translate" what he had writtten. But it wasn't just the legibility (or otherwise) of his writing that had the teacher concerned but the fact that he often complained of pain in his hand or wrist after writing, even if writing for a short time. The teacher suggested a computer for his school work because they felt it would help Harry to show his true academic potential without hinderance from his writing "issues". So Harry was feeling excited and hoping that this could indeed be put into practice until the bombshell hit- he would need the Dursley's permission and involvement to use one, and while they probably wouldn't mind signing a form, giving up their time was a completely different matter(and they would want to know why Dudley couldn't use one too). Unfortunately it seemed using a laptop was out of the equation.

So when Harry went to Hogwarts he was hoping to be able to use a laptop at last. As Hogwarts was a boarding school that seemed to have little contact with the outside world and did what it wanted, he'd been thinking that maybe he wouldn't _need _the Dursley's permission anymore (also his year 4 teacher had said that he really should look into getting a laptop for secondary school as the work load significantly increased) but it was not to be.__

__Modern Technology, Harry quickly discovered, did not work around Hogwarts. Which was a shame really, as he would have loved to take pictures of the grounds, so once again a laptop was out of the equation.  
He progressed through first year trying to write as little as acceptable in his essays despite being able to say more in order to write as little as possible to save his aching wrist. As a consequence his marks suffered. He didn't think he'd ever be at Hermionie's level, but then again few would, but he felt he definitely could have done better than he did. The professors noticed too, that his class performance was better, but they put it down to laziness outside the classroom and his sprawly, messily written essays did little to change their minds. And when he got onto the quidditch team he was _so _grateful the seeker had nothing to do with the catching and throwing of the quaffle.___ _

____When Harry returned for his second year it was much the same as the year before, (Basilisk and Lockhart and no Quirrel and practically everything non-academic beside). Struggling, but not too much, in lessons and writing as little as he could in essays and tests and still being told to work on his writing. So when he discovered Riddle's diary (which turned out to be a horcrux) he was really grateful that A. Riddle could read his writing and B. that Riddle didn't comment on its legibilty. When it came to deciding what subjects to take Harry signed up for Care of Magical Creatures and Divination , not only because Ron was doing them too, but also because they were both practical subjects that seemed to entail little, or at least less writing than the others._ _ _ _

____Third year was harder, what with the extra subjects he was now doing. It meant more work, and while Care didn't involve much written homework (and maybe Harry was just imagining it-but he swore he saw Hagrid give him a wink when he said "no essays") divination was a different story, requiring Dream Journals and the like. But he made it through, sometimes he wonders how and thinks about how lucky he was that Hermionie had the time turner so he could save Sirius amd himself._ _ _ _

____In fourth year, during the holidays, Harry had at first been reluctant to send Sirius letters, worried that his godfather wouldn't be able to read them, but it seemed his worries had been pointless as Sirius replied to his letters promptly,adressing all his points and never asking for clarification about what he had written. Eventually Harry asked if and how Sirius could easily read his writing, the older man replied saying that "James had the same problem with messy writing, messy everything actually the amount of times your father nearly went down to breakfast with his shirt inside out , that didn't go away no matter how hard he tried", this cheered Harry up, and he found it amusing how there was one more similarity he had to his father._ _ _ _

_______Fifth year was defintely the worst year so far. With OWLs just around the corner, it started to hit him just how much of a problem his writing problem was. The professors were saying he needed to clean up his act and he was receiving As where he could have got Es or maybe even Os, because of his poor presentation, stupid spelling mistakes of words he _knew _how to spell and all the content he didn't include because it was painful to write for too long. To top it all off there was Umbridge The Queen of the Toads who seemed to make it her personal mission to make his life harder. He hated her lessons which were purely theoretical and thus involved lots of writing. In the christmas holidays, due to his worries about how he would cope in the OWLs, he decided to talk to Sirius. He told him how it was painful to write for more than about 10-30 minutes, depending on the legibilty of his writing, and how even when he tried his best his writing was still shabby compared to everyone else. He talked about how the teachers marked him down and told him to try harder to write neatly even though he did, and when he was done Sirius just looked at him._  
"You mean the teachers haven't done anything to help you Harry?" Sirius asked, "I remeber James had a similar problem and he talked to our head of house and they tries to help him, maybe you should try telling McGonogall what you've told me."  
So with the idea of help in mind Harry thought he would. After his disatrous first careers meeting, McGonogall invited him back for another, with just the two of them this time. He told her a shorter and less emotional version of what he told Sirius, about how he was struggling. This time too, he was met with a blank stare.  
"It took you 4 and a bit years before you decided this was worth mentioning Potter?" McGonogall stated disbelievingly, "why?"  
Harry explained how it had been irritating at first but he could cope, but now that there were exams coming up he really cared, and he wanted to get across all, or at least more, of what he knew. Also Padfoot had told him that his father'd had a similar problem during his time at school and had managed to get help so Harry wanted to see if he could get the same.  
Harry left that meeting with precious little more advice about his career but with a thought quill, spelled to write whatever he thought in a standard print, a letter allowing him to use such a quill and a new word, "dyspraxia"(apparently his father'd had it too), which despite his foraging through the library he couldn't find a book on-or a meaning. It seemed Wizards were to important to keep dictionaries in the Library amd obviously with no technology he couldn't look it up online.__

_______In the summer holidays before his sixth year Harry decided to check it the muggle Library to see what they had to say. He requested to be able to use a computer and the librarian offered him the guest card to turn it on, as unfortunately he was still not a member of the library, the Dursley's refusing to sign him up. The first website he went on was the dyspraxia foundation, the the NHS website then wikipedia(but it was a little heavy for him). As he read through the articles he felt a sense of understanding grow in him. His problems with writing and affinity from clumsiness and falling asleep in class due to always feeling tired made sense. There was a reason he was so much worse at P.E. in primary school other than laziness despite his best efforts. The fact that he forgot some things as soon as people told him, leading to them thinking he wasn't listening, but also remebering, with complete clarity, pointless encounters from years ago. He read about how children with dyspraxia were often accused of being lazy, but also about how common it was with it being even more so in males. Lots of the things he couldn't tell he had or not, such as: trouble learning to ride a bike or swim or not crawling as the Dursley's never taught him the first two and didn't care about the latter.  
When he returned to 4 Privet Drive and packed his trunk, ready for Dumbledore's arrival he wasn't worries about his work tgis school year-he would finally be able to show what he really knew.  
And when his OWL results arrived? Well, he was happy that his conversation with McGonogall had paid off._ _ _ _ _

______In his seventh year, where he didn't actually _go _to school so he's not sure if he could call it that, he could finally use magic. He thought that maybe, just maybe he would actually be able to _tie _his shoe laces, but no, the spell was flawed. And when he dueled with Voldemort he never told anyone that he was just as suprised when he caught the elder wand as Voldemort himself-especially as he caught it so it pointed towards Voldemort killing him, but he likes the glory so he doesn't mention that little detail._____ _ _ _ _ _

__________When he's and adult with kids of his own at platform 9 and 3/4, he makes sure they have all their belongings, _including _their own thought quills and letters, his kids were going to show the world what they were capable of from the start.___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _


End file.
